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Criterion February Releases (US - DVD R1 | BD RA)

The Criterion Collection announces their release lineup for February...

Criterion has announced their releases for the month of February. Each film will be available on both DVD and Blu-ray, with the same special features.

La Jetée/Sans Soleil

Quote: Release Date: 7 Feb 2012 SRP: $39.95

Synopsis: One of the most influential, radical science-fiction films ever made and a mind-bending free-form travelogue: La Jetée and Sans Soleil couldn’t seem more different—but they’re the twin pillars of an unparalleled and uncompromising career in cinema. A filmmaker, poet, novelist, photographer, editor, and now videographer and digital multimedia artist, Chris Marker has been challenging moviegoers, philosophers, and himself for years with his investigations of time, memory, and the rapid advancement of life on this planet. These two films—a tale of time travel told in still images and a journey to Africa and Japan—remain his best-loved and most widely seen.

Disc Features -Restored high-definition digital transfers, approved by director Chris Marker, with uncompressed monaural soundtracks -Two interviews with filmmaker Jean-Pierre Gorin - Chris on Chris, a video piece on Marker by filmmaker and critic Chris Darke -Two excerpts from the French television series Court-circuit (le magazine): a look at David Bowie’s music video for the song “Jump They Say,” inspired by La Jetée, and an analysis of Hitchcock’s Vertigo and its influence on Marker - Junkopia, a six-minute film by Marker, Frank Simone, and John Chapman about the Emeryville Mudflats -A booklet featuring an essay by Marker scholar Catherine Lupton, an interview with Marker, notes on the films and filmmaking by Marker, and more

Three Outlaw Samurai

Quote: Release Date: 14 Feb 2012 SRP: $29.95

Synopsis: This first film by the legendary Hideo Gosha is among the most canonized chambara (sword-fighting) films. An origin-story offshoot of a Japanese television series phenomenon of the same name, Three Outlaw Samurai is a classic in its own right. In it, a wandering, seen-it-all ronin (Tetsuro Tamba) becomes entangled in the dangerous business of two other samurai (Isamu Nagato and Mikijiro Hira), hired to execute a band of peasants who have kidnapped the daughter of a corrupt magistrate. With remarkable storytelling economy and thrilling action scenes, this is an expertly mounted tale of revenge and loyalty.

Tiny Furniture

Quote: Release Date: 14 Feb 2012 SRP: $39.95

Synopsis: Lena Dunham got her start making YouTube videos, but she emerged as a major talent thanks to the breakthrough success of this exceptionally sharp comedy, which garnered the twenty-four-year-old writer-director-actor comparisons to the likes of Woody Allen. The filmmaker herself plays Aura, a recent college graduate who returns to New York and moves back in with her mother and sister (played by their real-life counterparts). Though Aura is gripped by stasis and confusion about her future, Dunham locates endless sources of refreshing humor in her plight. As painfully confessional as it is endlessly amusing, Tiny Furniture is an authentic, incisive portrait of a young woman at a crossroads.

Disc Features -New digital transfer, with DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition -Director Lena Dunham talks about filmmaking and autobiography in a new interview with writer and filmmaker Nora Ephron -New interview with writer-director Paul Schrader - Creative Nonfiction, Dunham’s first feature film -Four short films by Dunham -Trailer -A booklet featuring an essay by critic Phillip Lopate

World on a Wire

Quote: Release Date: 21 Feb 2012 SRP: $39.95

Synopsis: World on a Wire is a gloriously paranoid, boundlessly inventive take on the future from German wunderkind Rainer Werner Fassbinder. With dashes of Stanley Kubrick, Kurt Vonnegut, and Philip K. Dick, as well as a flavor entirely his own, Fassbinder tells the noir-spiked tale of a reluctant action hero, Fred Stiller (Klaus Lowitsch), a cybernetics engineer who uncovers a massive corporate conspiracy. At risk? (Virtual) reality as we know it. Originally made for German television, this recently rediscovered, three-and-a-half-hour labyrinth is a satiric and surreal look at the weird world of tomorrow from one of cinema’s kinkiest geniuses.

Disc Features -New high-definition digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition -Fassbinder’s “World on a Wire”: Looking Ahead to Today, a fifty-minute documentary about the making of the film by Juliane Lorenz -New interview with German-film scholar Gerd Gemünden -New English subtitles -Trailer for the 2010 theatrical release -A booklet featuring an essay by film critic Ed Halter

Anatomy of a Murder

Quote: Release Date: 21 Feb 2012 SRP: $39.95

Synopsis: A virtuoso James Stewart plays a small-town Michigan lawyer who takes on a difficult case: that of a young Army lieutenant (Ben Gazzara) accused of murdering the local tavern owner who he believes raped his wife (Lee Remick). This gripping, envelope-pushing courtroom potboiler, the most popular film from Hollywood provocateur Otto Preminger, was groundbreaking for the frankness of its discussion of sex—more than anything else, it is a striking depiction of the power of words. With its outstanding supporting cast—including a young George C. Scott as a fiery prosecuting attorney and legendary real-life attorney Joseph N. Welch as the judge—and influential jazz score by Duke Ellington, Anatomy of a Murder is a Hollywood landmark; it was nominated for seven Oscars, including best picture.

Disc Features -New high-definition digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition -New alternate 5.1 soundtrack, presented in DTS-HD Master Audio on the Blu-ray edition -New interview with Otto Preminger biographer Foster Hirsch -Critic Gary Giddins explores Duke Ellington’s score in a new interview -A look at the relationship between graphic designer Saul Bass and Preminger with Bass biographer Pat Kirkham -Newsreel footage from the set -Excerpts from a 1967 episode of Firing Line, featuring Preminger in discussion with William F. Buckley Jr. -Excerpts from the work in progress Anatomy of “Anatomy”: The Making of a Movie -Behind-the-scenes photographs by Life magazine’s Gjon Mili -Trailer, featuring on-set footage -A booklet featuring an essay by critic Nick Pinkerton and a 1959 Life magazine article on real-life lawyer Joseph N. Welch, who plays the judge in the film

Vanya on 42nd Street

Quote: Release Date: 28 Feb 2012 SRP: $39.95

Synopsis: In the nineties, André Gregory mounted a series of spare, private performances of Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya in a crumbling Manhattan playhouse. These treasures of pure theater would have been lost to time had they not been captured on film, with subtle cinematic brilliance, by Louis Malle. In Vanya on 42nd Street, a stellar cast of actors—including Wallace Shawn, Julianne Moore, Brooke Smith, and George Gaynes—embark on a full read-through of Uncle Vanya (adapted into English by David Mamet); the result is as memorable and emotional a screen version of Chekhov’s masterpiece as one could ever hope to see. This film, which turned out to be Malle’s last, is a tribute to the playwright’s devastating work as well as to the creative process itself.